Categories: Gig guide

Waaaaay back in May 2012, after listening to a fascinating and creepy story from a friend with a house at Venus Bay, I wrote a post called Gippsland Gothic, about two eccentric women who lived Misses-Havisham style in a crumbling homestead in marshland. One died, the other disappeared, and the mystery continues.

I’m not really fussed about blog stats – this isn’t a commercial blog after all – but I noticed something interesting after that: Not a day has gone by without someone hitting that post or using search strings on Tullaree, Margaret Clement and other keywords relating to the story. There really is a lot of interest out there about that story.

Commenter Jane-Louise Hobson has written a play called Tale of Tullaree about Margaret Clement. There’s a reading on at the Wonthaggi Theatre Group next weekend, with matinees both days and one evening show. Details are here.

I’m going with the friend who first told me the story, and we’ll stay the night down at Venus Bay, where Margaret’s bones were found.

Or the bones, that is, which might have been hers, and which have also disappeared.

Throwing this post up late, but Tess and the Shapiros are playing at the Union Hotel in Brunswick, this Saturday night (13th), 9-11.

Tess hasn’t advertised this one, perhaps because it will feature a lot of new material from the Bob sessions at Pure Pop, where, you will recall, <>Tess recreated the Times they Are a’Changin album as part of the Summer of Classic Albums series.

This is one of the songs we’ll be doing.

Tess’s version sounds nothing like this.

This has song has haunted me especially in the days since Thatcher died. Seems downsizing and outsourcing wasn’t invented by the neoliberal 80s but they certainly took that ball and ran with it.

They say in the East that they’re payin too high
They say that your ore ain’t worth diggin
That it’s much cheaper down in South American towns
Where the miners work almost for nothin

Substitute “China” or “Special Economic zones” for “South American towns” (except it wouldn’t scan) and change the miners to people who make things, and nothing’s changed.

Daniel Flitton’s “analysis” of the Leadership Thing in the AGE today was disgusting. In the last few days there’s been a lot of denial of the sexist cliches which follow Julia Gillard around; lots of “nothing to see here, move along!” But Flitton, writing for the front page of a national newspaper – one of the few remaining places in the media where we might expect people to write intelligently about these political stoushes – chooses to present the narrative of the Labor leadership spill exclusively in terms of sex, romance and relationships.

How a fine romance ended in a messy divorce. In Flitton’s narrative, there was an “awkward” “first date“, when Kevin met Julia (a reference to a romantic comedy, for the few people who might not be aware of that), a courtship rather than a romance, a proposition and a get-away (with a creepy suggestion of a threesome). and that’s just in the first paragraph! It goes on… and on. Rudd saw Gillard as a potential partner for life but it was a marriage of convenience ending in divorce and breakup which, in the manner of so many heterosexual breakups, was forcing people to take sides. (Oh, great FSM, how will they plan the dinner parties?)

This gendered trivialisation of Australia’s first female PM hurts all women. I often find Twisty Faster’s concept of women as “the sex class” useful to parse weird statements like this, and it’s spot on here. Flitton can only explain a prominent woman in terms of her membership of the sex class, with Mills and Boon and chick-flicks as essential props for her irredeemably female character. Also, a female person working with a male person must be subject to Unresolved Sexual Tension, by virtue of her female sexual force-field of which Bettina Arndt has so kindly reminded us. If that means that women can be excluded from positions of power or authority because they must distract the blokes, well, that’s just too bad; it’s just the way things are.

And bugger me, here’s Tony Wright channelling Angela Carter on another page (same day), comparing Kevin Rudd to St Kevin of the Wicklow Mountains. More light-hearted tosh than an attempt at analysis, it nevertheless manages to heap more gendered insults on a thinly-veiled version of Gillard:

St Kevin’s greatest distraction, legend has it, was a woman who was determined to relieve him of the leadership his virtue. St Kevin threw himself into a bed of nettles to avoid being seduced and set fire to a handful of burning weeds to fend off his pursuer.
…St Kevin ”Hurl(ed) the maiden from the rock into the black lake shrieking”. But that, surely, was merely ghastly myth.

Hey! The New Everything has a four-star review in the AGE / EG. I don’t know how many stars one can potentially earn but none of the other offerings this week have more.

It’s not published on line, so what the hell, that touch typing I learned at school has got to be good for something. Right?

With a vocal comfort zone that in past performances has seemed to swing with ease from melodic balladry to twangy country, what’s new about everything on Tess McKenna’s stylish and thoroughly satisfying fourth LP is that it’s all fallen into place. Recorded in Melbourne with Barry Stockley joining her at the controls, she’s got the mix just right between acoustic singer-songwriter and plugged-in band material. Gentle strummers such as the title track, Pancho Style[should be Poncho style] and Down By the Sea serve to perfectly set up the electric guitar crescendos of numbers such as Fill me Up. Love is Gone, a sinewy blues number, could have come from a hot’n’sweaty Mississippi juke joint, smouldering for nearly eight minutes without ever quite igniting. Better still is energetic rocker Hummingbird, with strategically placed harmonica lines. Rumbling bass and driving drums give Tidy Town a heavier, ominous feel, then it’s back to the blues on nine-minute closer Still our House, which is also the closest she comes to Tamworth on this set of songs. McKenna launches The New Everything at the Northcote Social Club on Sunday at 2 PM.
Jeff Glorfeld
The AGE, EG 18.2.2011

Tess will officially launch her latest CD, The New Everything, at the Northcote Social Club on Sundee week (Sunday 20th Feb). It’s been out in the wild for a few weeks, and you can buy it here.

Tess McKenna’s fourth album, The New Everything, was recorded over a year in the low-fi setting of Fatsound Studio, with Barry Stockley & an ensemble of long time playing pals including Ash Davies on drums. The New Everything eases in between barefaced folk and dirty bang bang blues to sonic rock overdrive. This is singer-songwriter McKenna at her best – authentic, soulful & intimate.
Tess has toured her music extensively, supporting artists such as Nick Cave & Lucinda Williams; has played her music from as far as the Woodford Folk Festival to the East Coast Roots & Blues Festival in Byron Bay, from the Melbourne Concert Hall to Austin’s SXSW Music Festival in Texas, USA. Tess McKenna & her longtime band The Shapiros will be joined by special guests for an afternoon of pitch-perfect harmonies and shimmering guitars to launch The New Everything at the Northcote Social Club 20th February 2011. [Doors open at 2 PM – $12.]

Ashley Davies, who plays drums on the CD, is off touring with The Dingoes. So I’m occupying the drum seat for the launch, and thereafter. Which is a huge honour, and an exciting day to look forward to.

In stunning vocal form Tess McKenna steps up as producer-singer-songwriter of her enticing album #4, The New Everything.

Barefaced folk and dirty bang bang blues to sonic rock overdrive McKenna’s sultry voice pulls you into a thrilling musical journey. Listen to her incredible sweetly styled vocals on the title track, through to hints of country pop on Photograph and new folk twists in Poncho Style; this style is pure Tess. Authentic, soulful and intimate.

Just in time for your Xmas shoppingz!

Sadly (for me), I’m not playing on this one, because I rejoined after it was recorded.